The 2020 Mazda CX-30 is a crossover you’ll actually enjoy driving

• 

  This is the 2020 Mazda CX-30, the company’s latest subcompact crossover. [credit: Jonathan Gitlin ]

SAN DIEGO—The new Mazda CX-30 is a strange and wonderful thing—a subcompact crossover you’ll really enjoy driving. Sitting between the diminutive CX-3 and the heftier CX-5, it is an all-new model for Mazda that shares the same new Skyactiv vehicle architecture as the Mazda 3 we tried out at the start of the year. (It might have been called the CX-4 had that moniker not already been pressed into action for a China-only crossover.)

The CX-30 is not particularly fast. It boasts no sporting pretensions. It’s also not really that expensive—the lineup starts at just under $22,000 for a front-wheel-drive spec, and a fully loaded all-wheel drive model with all the doodads still slips in under $30,000 unless you want that eye-catching Soul Red paint. But it has a well-appointed interior that, like the Mazda 3, punches well above its price bracket. You control everything with buttons and knobs and dials—no touchscreens are to be found here. And it yet again confirms that the Hiroshima-based car maker really does know how to imbue its vehicles with jinba ittai—a Japanese expression meaning the horse and rider acting as one. Drive it fast, slow, in traffic, on the freeway, or on your favorite back road—it doesn’t matter. It all puts a smile on your face.

Which is crazy—everyone knows that crossovers aren’t supposed to be pleasurable to drive, right?